My Story - The younger me wasn't the smartest me

     

  I remember the first time it happened, I was 5 months pregnant with my first daughter and tired. I probably said something snarky in the Texas heat to my almost husband and felt the first sting of his hand across my face.

I was stunned.

But he promised that it would never happen again. He said all the right things. That is when I could hear the women's voices that I sat and half listened to in the high school auditorium started murmuring in my head.

The next time I was 8 months pregnant, he shoved me into the fridge in our kitchen with his hand to my throat, demanding I never speak with a friend of mine again because he was "trying to split us up."

But, he apologized again, right? Those women's voices on stage started to get louder "He won't change, what will he do to your daughter?"

The next time my daughter was 4 months old, she was lying on the waterbed and he got mad. He took out his knife and stabbed the bed next to her four times, water flowed everywhere and I barely got her off the bed in time.

Those women's voices were screaming, "He will kill you and her next time, get out."

There wasn't a next time.

He went to a neighbors house around 11pm, I had a bag by the front door and my daughter dressed. The moment he left, I grabbed her and ran. I ran until I couldn't breath. I ran to a nearby neighborhood and banged on the door of a sweet elderly couple I'd never met. The took me in, allowed me to call a friend and played with my daughter until I was picked up.

He raged, showed up at my friends house and drove his car into their lawn. Screamed and yelled, tried to barge into the house to grab me and my daughter. We called the police, I didn't go outside alone for months.

Even to this day, he has called me and I knew how close he was because of the sound of a train driving by. I have blocked him on all of my social media sites, I have done what I can to protect myself and my family from what he might do one day.

Those women's voices are still with me today, though no one would ever know it. I watch my daughters and try to make sure they are safe from the man they love. I watch my son and make sure he never turns into one of those men. I watch my friends to see if anyone is showing signs or might need someone they can scream help to.

I am one of those voices that isn't in the auditorium at your local high school, I want to be the voice that stands next to my older friends and says, "You don't have to do this alone", because those are the ones that don't always know that.